Dispute Continues after SAS Copyright Judgement

An English judge has given only limited support to breach of copyright claims by business analytics software giant SAS against UK-based small firm World Programming Ltd (WPL), concerning the development of analytical software WPS; and has referred to the European Court of Justice for clarification.

In a High Court verdict in July, Mr Justice Arnold opined that a program could be protected by copyright law but its basic functionality could not, allowing competitors to create programs with the same or similar functionality; and that SAS' key claims failed on these grounds. However, he considered this not to be 'Acte Clair' - a clear and conclusive inference from the statute - and therefore referred to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for an opinion. The latter's verdict is expected to take some time, and in the meantime at least WPL is free to continue its competitive activities.

The judge also ruled that the wording of one of WPL's manuals is too close to the corresponding SAS tome and does infringe copyright: WPL will withdraw and rewrite the manual.

The two sides have issued widely differing statements on the judgement to date, WPS claiming 'a major legal victory' of a 'David and Goliath' nature, while SAS says the claim is 'false', points out that the only conclusive judgement so far is in its favour (the manual rewrite) and says it will 'vigorously pursue the remaining issues in this case'.

SAS filed the suit in October 2009, alleging that World Programming 'used the SAS Learning Edition product for purposes of developing, testing and benchmarking its WPS software', in breach of its licensing agreement, and sought damages to restrain the unauthorized use of the Edition and prevent the sale and distribution of the software. WPL then applied to the High Court in England for an expedited trial. While the licence breach claim has been upheld in one instance, the implication that sales of the software should be stopped, has not.

Web sites: www.sas.com , www.teamwpc.co.uk and thanks to www.lexology.com for legal interpretation.

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.